Zyklon-Säbel

Kapitel 97

"If she knew something, why didn't she leave herself?" I tilted my head curiously, then looked at Fang Lei again.

“Maybe she thought she could prevent something from happening, so she sent Baiyun to the Moonshadow Clan to find something or someone to help her!” Fang Lei frowned, but then said, “That’s not right, how did she know that the Moonshadow Clan was in Zuomu Village? And who told her?”

"Stop thinking about it. We should be figuring out what to do next." I closed Bai Ling's file. The surrounding light had suddenly dimmed, as if countless black wisps of smoke were slowly enveloping us. A strange sense of unease and restlessness swirled around us like hungry wolves. I could see the churning waves in the darkness. From outside the once quiet archives came the howls of patients, sometimes sorrowful, sometimes desperate, sometimes angry. Interspersed among these waves of screams was a deathly silence, a requiem woven from the alternating noise and quiet. I also heard strange, faint sounds, like surging waves, or the scratching and clawing of bones by demons.

After setting down the file, Fang Lei and I carefully walked out of the archives, hand in hand. In her other hand, Fang Lei clutched the lotus hairpin tightly; its faint purple light became our only source of illumination. The surrounding darkness seemed to be repelled three feet away by the purple-glowing hairpin, as if by a current of air. I felt an almost frenzied, joyful flow beneath my patterned skin, as if it wanted to pierce through my skin and merge with the darkness. It was so hot; I felt a fever that wouldn't break. The doors to all the wards had suddenly vanished, yet not a single patient had escaped. As I passed through those wards, I saw only one after another white figures standing motionless, their black hair concealing no faces—not a single one, only faces that looked as if they were covered in white powder. Moreover, some patients weren't standing on the floor, but on the ceiling or walls, completely defying the constraints of gravity. They looked like white-faced puppets that a demon had arbitrarily placed in the room.

After walking for a while, I began to realize that the corridor seemed to have no end, and Fang Lei's face was becoming increasingly blurry in my mind's eye. Looking at the patient in the room, I suddenly had a strange feeling, as if something was about to emerge from the gap in my thinking, but it also seemed to be missing something like a catalyst.

"Lin Xiao, do you find it strange?" Fang Lei asked, "The patient's standing position cycles every seven."

"What?" I didn't understand Fang Lei's meaning at first. After thinking about it for a while and looking at the patients in the room, I finally understood. Sure enough, although the patients in the room were standing in different positions, if you looked closely, you would find that they were in a cycle of seven. That is to say, the first person's standing position was the same as the eighth person's standing position, the second person's standing position was the same as the ninth person's standing position, and so on.

"Oh no!" Fang Lei suddenly gasped, "This is the Seven Ghosts Soul-Locking Formation!"

"What kind of formation? Is it very powerful?" I asked hurriedly.

"It's a formation that's long been forbidden in the world of magic. It uses seven ghosts arranged in the shape of the Big Dipper to lock someone's soul, preventing them from ever being reincarnated. Theoretically, the more ghosts used in the formation, the stronger it is. Now there are so many ghosts here, their power is probably..." At this point, I could clearly feel the fear in Fang Lei's heart, because she could barely speak clearly, and her hands were trembling uncontrollably.

"It's okay, I'm here, I'm here!" I held Fang Lei's small hand tightly and said, "Don't worry, we always manage to get out of danger, don't we?"

"I hope so," Fang Lei whispered, moving closer to me.

Walking briskly down the dark corridor, I felt the air around me growing colder. Facial features slowly began to emerge on the patients' faces, though still blurry. I tried to use the Lin family's soul-refining technique, but as soon as I focused my mind, the patterns on my skin burned, making me uneasy and increasingly agitated. My agitation caused sweat to bead on my forehead. I opened my mouth, already feeling that breathing through my nose alone was insufficient.

Slowly, the patients' faces became clearer and clearer, drawing closer to the door as if they were about to emerge. I felt a wave of suffocation. Looking up, I saw a patient's face just ten meters away, in a room that seemed different from the others. There was no ferocity or anger, but a faint sadness. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was the face of an old woman, surprisingly kind. Suddenly, I felt that she was Bailing. Although I had never seen her before, my sixth sense told me that she was Bailing, and perhaps the only hope for Fang Lei and me to get out of here alive!

Volume Three: Delicacies of Hell, Chapter Thirty-Eight: White Clouds

Volume Three: Delicacies of Hell, Chapter Thirty-Eight: White Clouds

As I struggled toward Bai Ling's room, I realized that the patients from the other rooms had already slowly made their way to the door, seemingly about to rush out. Their expressions were becoming increasingly ferocious, and I felt a sense of powerlessness.

"Take this and get out of here!" Bai Ling shoved something into my hand. I looked down and saw it was a necklace exactly like Su Qiao's, with a pendant that was a round piece with strange patterns on it. At that moment, I finally realized that the patterns on my body were exactly the same as the patterns on this round piece.

Clutching the necklace tightly in my hand, I felt a cool sensation travel from the disc through my palm, slowly seeping into my skin, almost making my blood feel cool. My previously restless mood instantly calmed down. Slowly, I felt that familiar fluctuation in my lower abdomen, and slowly, blue light particles formed between my fingers again.

Looking up, the patients seemed very wary of the blue light particles in my hand, and they all involuntarily took a step back. Fang Lei immediately seized the opportunity, drawing several circles in the air with her hairpin, and a purple halo enveloped Fang Lei and me. The blue light particles, like blue fireflies dancing in the purple halo, multiplied. As the blue light particles and the purple halo gradually intensified, I began to feel my breathing become much smoother, and my body became more agile. I hurriedly pulled Fang Lei and ran, while the necklace in my hand suddenly swayed like a living snake, as if guiding us out of this damned formation. I didn't care whether this direction was actually effective; I could only follow the only light ahead like a deer in the dark, regardless of whether it led me to heaven or hell.

Fortunately, it seemed fate wasn't calling me back. After walking for only about three minutes, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Fang Lei and I were back. Although we were still in the corridor of the mental hospital, I knew that we had escaped again. It was a ghost who had helped us. Looking at the necklace in my hand, I let out a long sigh of relief.

"We're out?" Fang Lei looked at me in disbelief, her face beaming with excitement, as if she'd won the lottery. But the truth is, the fact that we managed to escape this formation alive and unharmed really makes us want to find a temple and offer our prayers.

"Thanks to this necklace." I handed the necklace to Fang Lei, who immediately murmured in confusion. Of course, I knew she probably noticed that Su Qiao also had the exact same one!

"I don't know, but we can just ask Su Qiao when we get back, right?" I said hurriedly.

"If she's deliberately hiding something, do you think you can get any results by asking her?" Fang Lei winked at me.

"Well, there's nothing I can do about that, but now's not the time for us to think about this." I could only shrug helplessly. I've always had an inexplicable fondness for Su Qiao. Maybe it's just because she looks quite a bit like Yin Xue; I never want to think the worst of Su Qiao. Although there are indeed many suspicious points about her existence.

“Yes, now is definitely not the time to consider this issue.” Fang Lei frowned. Although we had escaped this damned formation, we discovered that the patients in the room had begun to collectively go berserk, and their heart-wrenching screams were certainly not pleasant to hear. Sometimes I even wondered if I had arrived in hell. What was even more terrifying was that the patients' eyes had turned bloodshot, appearing even more eerie in the dark night.

"Follow along and see!" Fang Lei said, then gently waved the hairpin. The purple light transformed into a purple butterfly in the air, which slowly flew into the depths of the corridor.

Following closely behind the butterfly, we somehow walked out of the hospital building and headed straight for the garden behind it. In the dark night, there wasn't a sound. I realized then that there wasn't a single living sound in this place—not even the chirping of insects, let alone birdsong. This place was like a lifeless, desolate wasteland. I felt cold, damp air slowly rising from the dense foliage, clinging tightly to my skin.

Gradually, the purple butterfly seemed to be afraid of something, and it started to fly and stop intermittently. Fang Lei had to wave the hairpin several times to get the purple butterfly to continue.

"What's that?" Fang Lei and I both noticed a white patch amidst a dense thicket of trees. Upon closer inspection, we realized it was an abandoned well. Perhaps due to years of neglect or being surrounded by concrete, the well was almost completely submerged in the newly laid cement, with only the top part visible.

Upon closer inspection, the well opening had been sealed off with a cement slab, and the purple butterfly seemed to be trying to get into the well, hovering around the edge of the opening.

"Let's try to open it!" I let go of Fang Lei's hand and tried to push the cement slab. It looked heavy, but surprisingly, I managed to move it with some effort. I don't know if there was some gas in this waste well, but as soon as the cement slab was opened, a plume of white smoke immediately rose from the wellhead. It had a strange smell; I couldn't describe it. Although it didn't smell like anything, it immediately made my stomach churn, as if I was about to vomit. I waved my hand, trying to dispel the strange smoke.

"Hold your breath!" Fang Lei pulled me away from the well, saying anxiously, "It's the aura of corpses, and it's so strong!"

"No way! This place is awful!" I frowned in annoyance. After the white smoke cleared, I glanced at the well opening by the moonlight. There were small recessed holes on the side of the well wall, extending all the way to the bottom. It seemed to be a ladder for people to climb down!

"Shall we go down and take a look?" I asked Fang Lei. Fang Lei hesitated for a moment, but finally nodded in agreement.

I climbed down first. The well walls were very dry, seemingly unaffected by the dampness of the bushes. However, some areas had a layer of fuzzy white hairs on their surface. Just as I was about to reach out and touch them, Fang Lei stopped me.

"Don't touch them! Those are molds formed from years of accumulated corpse energy; they're poisonous!" Fang Lei warned me.

Poisonous? I immediately shuddered, and naturally dared not touch those things again. Fortunately, the white fur wasn't everywhere, so I could only be as careful as possible to avoid touching them when I went down.

I descended about 300 meters, and just when I thought I was going to keep climbing, my foot suddenly gave way, and I almost fell. Looking down, I saw a large hole in the well wall, just big enough for one person to crawl through.

I slowly crawled inside and found that Fang Lei and I were standing at the entrance of a large door, which was covered in white fur. The sight of it made my whole body itch.

"What do we do? How do we open it?" I asked helplessly. There's so much toxic mold on this door; I can't touch it!

"I'll do it!" Fang Lei took the hairpin off her hair, held it in front of her, silently recited a spell, and then pointed it towards the door. The purple light it emitted actually pressed down on the door like a giant hand.

Creak, creak...

It sounded like the turning of a rusty iron gate...

White smoke slowly seeped out from the gradually opening door...

At the same moment, I saw a white light flash before my eyes, and a familiar figure seemed to flicker gently in my mind.

Who is it...?

White clouds...?

My heart sank. Why would I think of her at this time? I shook my head, trying hard not to think about her. But in the rising white smoke, I could clearly see her figure. Yet, when I looked closer, she seemed to have vanished.

Behind the door was a dark little room. Fang Lei and I held hands and carefully entered. The purple light from the hairpin illuminated the entire room. The room was small, perhaps only ten square meters in size. However, it was piled high with books, though they would immediately raise a cloud of dust at the slightest touch. What surprised Fang Lei and me, however, was not the books, but a coffin at the far end of the room. It was indeed the size of a typical coffin, but it was covered in red patterns, the same patterns as those on my body and the round pieces. At that moment, I immediately recalled the black coffin in the Moonshadow Clan's hall, only this one was red. Could it be another Moonshadow Clan coffin? No, the Moonshadow Clan's mark should be an eye, but this red coffin didn't have one.

I had only taken a few steps into the coffin when I immediately noticed that it had no lid, and inside was a corpse floating in a brown liquid.

The liquid was the same color, but this time it didn't have the medicinal smell of the Moonshadow Clan. Walking to the coffin, the corpse inside was indistinct; I couldn't make out her features at all. Holding Fang Lei's hand, I felt it trembling uncontrollably. The red coffin seemed to be slowly emitting a faint red glow, illuminating the desiccated body within.

Slowly, I noticed that the body that had been at the bottom of the coffin was floating up. First, I saw a clump of black hair floating on the surface of the brown liquid, then a nose, and finally, skin that looked like that of a living person. But the face that gradually emerged surprised me so much that I took a big step back on the spot!

This face...this face...!

It was Bai Yun's face! So familiar. I froze on the spot. Her expression was so peaceful, as if she were simply asleep. Her smooth, delicate skin appeared even whiter against the brown liquid, and seemed to still have elasticity. Even more terrifying, her eyelashes were still fluttering slightly. Could it be…? She wasn't dead?

"Baiyun?" Fang Lei exclaimed in surprise. "None of us expected that the corpse in this coffin would be her!"

She was Baiyun? I stared in astonishment at the woman before me. Her face was unmistakably Baiyun's, even her figure was identical. But wasn't Baiyun already dead? Dead on the cliffs of the Moonshadow Clan?

Just as I was wondering what was going on, the white cloud in the brown liquid opened its eyes and slowly stretched out its arms towards me and the white cloud. Its body also slowly rose from the coffin, as if it were about to sit up.

What should I do now? Should I reach out and help Baiyun? I almost reached out, and I felt a hand involuntarily extend towards her.

"Ah!" Suddenly, Baiyun cried out in terror. Her body, which had been propped up, was pulled back into the coffin as if by someone, splashing brown liquid everywhere.

Looking closer, countless brown, withered hands had emerged from the bottom of the coffin. The hands were the same color as the liquid, creating the illusion that the brown liquid had given rise to these countless arms.

The withered, claw-like hands were now tightly gripping Baiyun's body. Those hands seemed to have emerged from a pool of blood in hell, trying to drag Baiyun down to hell as well.

Help her...?

Or... should we not help?

Book Three: Delicacies of Hell, Chapter Thirty-Nine: Punishment

Book Three: Delicacies of Hell, Chapter Thirty-Nine: Punishment

Are we just going to watch Baiyun get pulled down like this? Baiyun's body has been completely pulled back into the brown liquid, and her head is shaking frantically inside. Occasionally, some of the brown liquid gets into her mouth and nose, causing her to cough violently. Isn't this exactly what a normal person looks like when they're about to drown?

No, I can't watch her die! I couldn't bear it any longer. I was about to go forward and pull Bai Yun away when Fang Lei hugged me tightly from behind.

"Don't you want me to save Baiyun? That's a human life!" I turned around angrily, wanting to scold Fang Lei, but when I saw the tears in her eyes, I immediately stopped.

"Don't go! That's a crossroads leading to the underworld. If you take one more step, you'll be sucked in too!" Fang Lei shook her head vigorously.

"But, but..." I hesitated, then said, "Those are white clouds!"

"That doesn't count as a white cloud!" Suddenly, a faint voice rang out behind us without warning.

Who could this be?

Who? I turned around and saw a faint, transparent figure appear at the doorway. Upon closer inspection, it was Bai Ling! However, only her upper body was visible, while her lower body seemed to be submerged in churning red blood, and her face showed an expression of pain.

"Bai Ling?" Fang Lei leaned closer to me. I could smell the blood in the air. The hands that reached out from the red coffin were baring their fangs and claws in the air, ravaging my senses, like a blooming chrysanthemum with a beautiful woman as its stamen.

"She's not your Baiyun, don't touch her!" Bai Ling gave us a serious look, then turned her gaze to Baiyun, a strange light flickering in her eyes. Was it hatred, or pity?

"Then who is she?" Fang Lei asked.

“She is nobody, you could even say she is not human, but merely a seal with a life form.” Bai Ling sighed, her body slowly floating over, but only keeping a safe distance from the coffin, seemingly terrified.

"Seal? Seal what?" I asked anxiously. Seeing that Baiyun was about to be pulled down, I couldn't help but take another step closer to the red coffin, ready to rush over and pull Baiyun up at any moment.

"Don't go over there!" Bai Ling grabbed at the air, and I immediately felt an invisible hand pushing me backward. I tried to move, but I had already lost my freedom of movement.

"Senior!" Fang Lei glanced at Bai Ling, but in the end did not step forward to help me. Instead, she said to Bai Ling in a very sincere manner, "I think Senior would not want to harm us, otherwise you would not have let us out of the formation just now, right?"

"Hehe..." Bai Ling chuckled and said, "This girl is still the one who pleases this old woman. Let's let her go then!" As soon as she finished speaking, I immediately felt my body relax and I could move again! But this time I dared not move forward again, so I had no choice but to stand obediently in place.

"Actually, I'm helping you because I want you to help me," Bai Ling said.

"How can we help you?" Fang Lei's attitude was unusually respectful.

"It's very simple!" Bai Ling pointed to a long object in the corner and said, "This is the lid of the coffin. Just help me put it on!"

"If we cover it up, where will the white clouds go?" It was only then that I noticed the rectangular wooden board. It also had strange red patterns on it.

“She’s not Baiyun!” Bai Ling shook her head.

“But if we just cover it up like that, won’t she be locked inside?” I still disagreed.

"Didn't I tell you? She's not Bai Yun!" Bai Ling seemed furious at my stubbornness, and her face darkened. I immediately felt Fang Lei subtly tug at the corner of my clothes.

“Yes, senior.” Fang Lei actually agreed to Bai Ling’s request. This… I frowned. Fang Lei is definitely not a heartless person. What is she doing this for? And why is she so respectful to a ghost?

Fang Lei pulled me toward the coffin lid. Although I was extremely unwilling, if I had to choose between Bai Yun and Fang Lei, I would probably choose Fang Lei.

Reaching the coffin lid, the seemingly light wooden plank actually required both Fang Lei and me to lift it. We finally reached the coffin. Suddenly, I noticed that Bai Yun's eyes were filled with tears, and her sorrowful expression made my hand tremble involuntarily.

“Close your eyes,” Fang Lei said to me.

I immediately closed my eyes to avoid looking at the white clouds. But the scene from just now seemed to be etched into my mind; even with my eyes closed, that sorrowful face remained vividly before me. For some reason, memories of our time together in college flashed through my mind; her every smile and frown was clearer than ever before. I felt as if I were burying a friend who had once helped and cared for me—what difference was there between this and killing her? Thinking this, my steps slowed. Although I was only a few steps away from the red coffin, that distance felt like an eternity.

Cao Ying, Li Hai, and Bai Yun—those familiar faces, those who died before my eyes, and those who died for me—were so vivid in my mind. The pain that seeped from the depths of my heart almost suffocated me.